‘That’s what he said in the letter.’
‘Well, he’s right about that, but that’s all he’s right about. Gordon, he’s a madman. You can’t take what he says seriously.’ She hugged and kissed him, then parted with an admonition to come to bed.
Gordon read the letter one last time.
‘ “Dear Mr President. I suppose by now you’re trying to have me killed. I understand your decision completely. Every choice you’ve made to date has been correct. And the results of those choices have been extraordinarily good for you and your nation. But the outcome which awaits your next decision will be radically different. You will err at the most fateful turning point in modern man’s history, and that which you hold dearest will be placed in imminent danger. What I am talking about now is the worldwide spread of anarchy.” ’
Gordon felt a rush of anxiety each time he read those words. His mind raced. He was no longer sleepy.
‘ “Northern China now lies in ruins. Ten million refugees cling to life’s fringes. Another hundred million people are unemployed. Into that mixture of physical disruption and economic dislocation will soon return a defeated, demoralized army. Hundreds of thousands horribly brutalized by your war machine. Many of those soldiers will be changed psychologically. They’ll cast about for a meaning to it all. For some belief system which will explain the horrors of their youth. Their answer will be found in the simple word, ‘No.’ They will say no to everybody and everything. No to all authority. No to every norm. No to every order, every request, every plea. Why the word ‘no’? Because no empowers the powerless. No denies the dominion of the strong over the weak. ‘No!’ is the drug which eases the minds of the tortured, the traumatized, the guilt-ridden. ‘No’ is the hope that what came before will never be again.
‘ “From that one, simple word, mankind will finally taste the milk of true freedom. Not the freedom of your democratic rhetoric. The lawyerly parsing of rights and privileges, laws and checks and balances. But total freedom from all constraints. Men and women free to do whatever they wish. It is only then that true anarchy will reign.
‘ “And you are part of that great process. A bead in the necklace of history. Soon your moment of truth will arrive. Soon you will face a choice. You can stay in China. Do the dirty business of controlling a restive population. Maintain the pressure necessary to prevent man’s baser instincts from percolating to the surface. But that course will be opposed by all. Your allies, Congress, your adoring public. ‘Bring the boys home for a good parade! Leave the mess for them to clean up!’ You will, of course, withdraw, leaving a momentary vacuum of power. What will follow is an inexorable chain reaction. A burst of freedom followed by fiery repression. Escalating uprisings and backlashes in cycles. With each atrocity the pendulum will swing wider. The violence will soon grow uncontrollable. And from that combustible brew there will arise a leader. Someone to spark the inevitable explosion. To unleash the suppressed natural behavior of a billion and a half people. Imagine the soaring heights of ingenuity, and the depths and variety of evil. The social fallout from the unprecedented upheaval will wash over your bastion of order and stability. Your ship of state will be rocked, Mr President. Welcome to the post-ideological age.
‘ “My purpose in writing you, President Davis, is not to wash my hands of any blame. In fact I am proud of my contributions to society. For I believe mankind will emerge triumphant from its darkest horrors. It will, via that catharsis, transcend one order of human development for the next. Imagine a future in which violent coercion by a king or a count is unnecessary. In which man has been freed of the straitjacket of convention. If my optimism about the human spirit proves correct, how then will historians view heretics such as me, who cried out against the injustices of old? And how differently will they view the old engine’s protectors such as you? The defenders of the faith who will unleash great death machines in a desperate attempt to preserve, protect and defend?
‘ “Oh, but I would love to study the time of troubles that is nearing. But I would not trade places with you. I believe you to be a decent man laboring mightily to do an honest job. Your only limitation is that you have riot seen what I have seen. You have not been one of the teeth on a cog which slowly ground human flesh in the machine. Such extremes open the eyes and liberate the mind. They strip away the facade of government to reveal the abomination which lies inside. I am sorry, Mr Davis, that at this crucial juncture in history the reins of power happened to fall to you. V. Kartsev.” ’
Stempel and his squadmates heard fighting as they piled sandbags in the trucks. They built walls and sat back-to-back in the center. They faced out with their weapons at the ready. The truck’s canvas top was lashed down tight with cord. They’d raise the canvas and fire out the sides if they had to. Harold had no idea what the woman driving the truck would do.
But as soon as they began to roll, the soldiers confronted the real enemy. An awful cold numbed their skin and chilled their bones. The men’s combat-ready poses gave way. Hands that had once gripped rifles now clenched the mountain bags into which all retreated. Without the truck’s lone heater, they could never have made five miles. Its warm air wafted by Harold intermittently. He longed for every lukewarm touch. Every groan of the brakes meant relief. When the column stopped completely, it was heaven on earth. Men rose up, stretched, looked around. They rubbed their extremities and shook like dogs emerging from water. The whole convoy was ordered to dismount. Thousands of men descended moaning and bitching. They did jumping jacks and squat thrusts. When they loaded up and pressed on, Harold felt warm for five or ten delicious minutes.
The road wound through valleys along the river’s side. It was a rough land. But curled up on the floor of the truck Stempel could only see the top of the hills through a slender gap in the canvas. He sat there pinching his parka over all but his eyes. The guns of the M-1A1s up ahead sounded like thunder. Echoes turned the sharp cracks into a rumble. They were blasting a narrow pathway through the hills. Smoke rose from the slopes and from blackened craters dotting the road. Tanks with bulldozer blades smashed through barriers and filled in traps. The two heavy battalions that had led the way south from Birobidzhan were almost invulnerable to Chinese infantry. They had been the spearhead easily piercing poorly prepared infantry positions.
The air above the column buzzed with Apache gunships and Kiowa scouts. Trucks carried the helicopters’ ground crews, fuel and ammo forward, allowing them to be refitted on the shoulders of the narrow highway. Men swarmed over them like pit crews at the Indy 500, and they were quickly returned to the air. Their chopping blades sounded a near-constant thwack overhead as they scouted the column’s undefended flanks. Calls from forward air controllers sent them heeling over and charging into action. Their rockets and guns made short work of the enemy.
Only once did the Chinese mount an effective ambush. But the attackers received broadsides from over a dozen trucks. Almost two companies fired at point-blank range up the hills. Harold’s unit had been too far away to get in the fight. But he’d watched the ambush end with a stupendous, deafening airstrike. For far above the tree-skimming helicopters flew a dedicated flight of heavily-laden fighter-bombers. They and their tankers orbited in holding patterns awaiting the call. When they swooped down, they made clear the enormous difference between forty-pound artillery shells and two-thousand-pound bombs.